Personal presence : Because it’s impossible to not like

Tonight I met old college friends at a wine bar.
How we encountered? Simple. “The Internet”, more exactly Facebook, because that’s the only available platform, because nobody has the email address of nobody. It was weird because with online interactions, when someone asks you, “hey do you want to meet?”, you are not really thrilled, or you ask yourself if you would be thrilled, and you hesitate indefinitely. Then, when you don’t see any objection, you finally say “ok, sure!”, and then it becomes real, beware, you have to say yes and meet for REAL. Big deal. But it doesn’t become real until you make sure “so are we really meeting tomorrow?”, “sure, yes”. Let’s go.
When you meet, you are your top level polite self. “How are you?” “What do you do now” “Do you enjoy it?” “It’s been so long”. You still remember that you were not really close to this person, and that one didn’t reply to your last message, and that one never gave any news whatsoever. Then after two glasses of wine, you start remembering old pervert and awful teachers, and all that time you spent together suffering the same mental pain, and you are just glad to be together laughing at all that and feeling good about it. You start telling your life, insisting on all the small details that make you feel like a total warrior and you describe your experiences as if you were accepting an oscar. You just enjoy sharing the highlights. Then you remember why you are connected to those persons and you are just grateful to share that special moment with them. And you all end up updating “contact details” in real time.

This is what I lived tonight. Wine and old friends. One thing that was absurdly funny was that some people that never replied to any of the messages sent to set the reunion, actually showed up like … surprise ghosts! Good surprise! So you see, the discrete digital world is not really the analog reality.

I finally understand why personal presence is a bliss. It’s impossible to not like! When you interact with your full person with another person, it’s unexplainable to a machine, you just enjoy it! When there is some anxiety caused by online interactions, personal presence fixes everything. I love it! I love WINE !